WWE Armchair Booker: 5 ‘Would You?’ Questions, Including an Alexa Bliss Turn

WWE's roster is deeper than it has been in years, and the booking sheet coming out of SummerSlam shows it. CM Punk is carrying the Undisputed WWE Championship on SmackDown. Roman Reigns holds the World Heavyweight Championship on Raw. Solo Sikoa has become the most over act on either brand. Kevin Owens is back after 17 months away with a neck injury and already has an argument for another title shot.

The problem sits on the other side of the card. Punk and Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam was a battle of a babyface against a babyface. Reigns and Seth Rollins were the same. Sikoa is a babyface, LA Knight is a babyface, and Randy Orton returned as a heel and got cheered anyway. Sami Zayn blasting both Punk and Owens with the title belt in Toronto was the first real attempt to fix that.

So there are plenty of creative changes that can be made soon. With that in mind, we ask about five adjustments that should be considered. Each of these is a decision WWE could make on television inside the next few months. None of them require a signing, a trade, or a budget. They only require someone in the writers' room to pull the trigger.

Would you turn Alexa Bliss against Charlotte Flair?

Alexa Bliss pitched this pairing herself, and she has been open about why it works. Speaking on Busted Open Radio, Bliss described the appeal of the run with Charlotte Flair as getting to see "both of us letting our guards down and having fun." The two held the Women's Tag Team Championships for 100 days and have since added Tatum Paxley to the group on SmackDown, where they are working opposite Jade Cargill , Michin and B-Fab.

The turn is coming eventually. Bliss has spent her entire main roster career stabbing partners in the back, and she has said as much, which means the audience is already waiting for it. That is exactly the reason to hold it. The Bliss pairing has given Flair something she has not had in close to a decade, which is a version of her character the crowd actually wants to cheer. Cash that in now for one hot segment, and WWE loses the babyface Flair and gets a heel turn everybody saw coming. Save it for when Flair is back in a singles championship program, and the betrayal costs her a title.

Would you make Tiffany Stratton the next Chelsea Green program?

Sportsnaut answer: Yes, and it should happen before Rhea Ripley comes back.

Chelsea Green won the Interim WWE Women's Championship in the five-woman ladder match at SummerSlam, and she got there by knocking Tiffany Stratton off the ladder with a Swanton. Since then, the two have been booked as friends. Green came out with a kendo stick to run off Nia Jax and Lash Legend after they attacked Stratton, and the pair have teamed against Fatal Influence for the Women's Tag Team Championships.

The story is already written. Stratton is the Women's United States Champion; she was the favorite going into that ladder match in her home state, and she lost the title shot because her friend took her off a ladder. Green does not have to do anything villainous for that to curdle. The complication is Rhea Ripley , whose return sets up a unification match that is the obvious finish to the interim reign. Run Stratton first. Give Green a defense with real emotional stakes, then send her into Ripley having already been tested.

Would you have Solo Sikoa dethrone Roman Reigns?

Sportsnaut answer: Book the match. Do not change the title.

Sikoa hit Reigns with a Samoan Spike on the Aug. 17 episode of Raw and refused to rejoin the Bloodline, which was the payoff to a turn that has worked better than almost anyone expected. He and Knight beat the Usos and Jacob Fatu at SummerSlam alongside Royce Keys, and the reaction has been strong enough that WWE has kept feeding him television time on both brands.

Reigns against Sikoa is a main event, and it should happen. Putting the World Heavyweight Championship on Sikoa in the next few months is a different question, and the answer is no. His run as a top babyface is a few months old. The Raw title picture already has Oba Femi and Bron Breakker positioned as the next generation, and Reigns dropping the belt to Sikoa now would burn the biggest chase story WWE has developed this year. Let Sikoa fail first. The Rumble season is the right window.

Would you make SmackDown three hours permanently?

SmackDown moved to three hours in January 2026 and dropped back to two hours in the second half of the year, which is the same cycle the show ran in 2025. WrestleVotes Radio on Fightful Select has reported that USA Network sources expect the show to expand again in January 2027. That is a network scheduling decision built around lead-in programming, not a creative one.

The two-hour version is the better show. WWE already produces roughly eight hours of weekly television between Raw on Netflix, NXT on The CW, and SmackDown on USA, before premium live events are added. Locking SmackDown at three hours every week does not create more stars; it creates more segments that have to be filled. The current arrangement gives WWE the extra inventory when the network needs it and gives the writers a tighter show the rest of the year. That is the better of the two options.

Would you have Kevin Owens dethrone CM Punk?

Sportsnaut answer: Yes, but not in the rematch, and not next.

Owens returned at SummerSlam after 17 months out, won a fatal four-way over Zayn, Gunther , and Finn Balor, and got his shot in Toronto on the Aug. 21 SmackDown. He lost it when Zayn slid the title into the ring, Owens refused to use it, and Zayn hit him with it instead. Punk retained. Owens has as clean a case for a rematch as anyone gets.

The title is not the story WWE built there, though. Zayn turning on Owens after Owens refused to cheat is the most valuable thing to come out of that main event, and it gave the roster the top heel it has been short of all year. Run Owens against Zayn first and let it be personal. If Owens comes out of that program hot, then put him in with Punk again and change the title. A championship win in his first month back would be a return that has years of mileage left in it.

Four of these five questions are about the same shortage. WWE has more likeable performers than it can fit on a card, and almost nobody the audience wants to see lose. Punk against Rhodes, Reigns against Rollins, Sikoa against the Bloodline, and Owens against Punk were all built as good guy against good guy, and the company had to bring Orton back and turn Zayn just to give the top of the card an opposing side.

That is why the Bliss turn and the Stratton turn are worth holding rather than rushing. Turns work when they are earned and when the person turning has somewhere to go afterward. WWE has spent 2026 proving it can build babyfaces from scratch. Sikoa went from a stale enforcer character to the most over act on the roster in about three months. The harder job is the other half of the equation, and both Bliss and Stratton are sitting on stories that could fill it if the company gives them a reason beyond needing a heel that week.

The SmackDown question is the outlier, and it is the one where the answer is easiest. Three hours is a revenue decision that WWE and USA Network will keep making on a schedule that has nothing to do with the wrestling. Fans do not have to pretend it is a creative upgrade.